As the new sales manager for a B2B SaaS company that is starting to scale with 40 people, your first month and first quarter are critical for laying the groundwork for future success. Here's what you should aim to do in each timeframe: First Month: 1. Understand the Business: * Gain a deep understanding of the company's products, services, target market, value proposition, and competitive landscape. 2. Assess Current Sales Processes: * Evaluate existing sales processes, tools, and workflows to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. * Review sales metrics, performance data, and historical trends to identify patterns and insights. 3. Build Relationships: * Get to know your sales team members individually, understand their strengths, weaknesses, and motivations. * Develop rapport with cross-functional teams, including marketing, product, customer success, and operations. 4. Set Expectations: * Clearly communicate your vision, goals, and expectations for the sales team. * Align sales objectives with broader company goals and priorities. 5. Identify Quick Wins: * Identify low-hanging fruit and quick-win opportunities to boost morale and generate early momentum. * Focus on addressing any immediate challenges or bottlenecks that may be hindering sales performance. First Quarter: 6. Develop a Sales Strategy: * Develop a comprehensive sales strategy that aligns with the company's growth objectives and market opportunities. * Define target customer segments, ideal customer profiles, and go-to-market strategies. 7. Optimize Sales Processes: * Streamline and optimize sales processes to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and scalability. * Implement standardized workflows, sales cadences, and best practices. 8. Provide Training and Development: * Implement a structured onboarding program for new hires and provide ongoing training and development opportunities for the sales team. * Focus on building sales skills, product knowledge, objection handling, and negotiation techniques. 9. Implement Sales Technology: * Evaluate and implement sales technology tools and platforms to support sales operations, enablement, and analytics. * Implement a CRM system to track leads, opportunities, and customer interactions. 10. Set Performance Metrics: * Define key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to track sales performance, such as conversion rates, pipeline velocity, and quota attainment. * Implement regular performance reviews and coaching sessions to provide feedback and support to the sales team. 11. Foster a Culture of Accountability: * Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement within the sales team. * Celebrate successes, recognize top performers, and address underperformance proactively. 12. Align with Leadership: * Maintain open communication and alignment with executive leadership, providing regular updates on sales performance, initiatives, and challenges. * Seek input and guidance from leadership to ensure alignment with company goals and priorities. By focusing on these key initiatives in your first month and first quarter as a sales manager, you can establish a strong foundation for sales success, drive growth, and position the company for long-term scalability and profitability. ChatGPT can make mistakes. Consider checking important information.

From a mental perspective burnout is definitely a real challenge in sales. I answered another question in how to handle burnout, as a career in sales is a marathon not a sprint. From a tactical perspective, one of the biggest frustrations I have experienced as an AE are constant book-of-business (BoB) or territory changes. AE's can really hit their stride when they can consistently work their BoB, and sudden, unexpected changes can be disruptive to productivity and revenue. Building a strong BoB is one of the hardest part of sales, once the foundation is set I like to give things time, watch reps cook and allows the “magic” to happen. *This is of course if the current BoB/Territory alignment is working.

Sales leaders can set KPIs around behaviors we want to see and hold the team accountable to them but top performers will disregard them if they don’t find it is what puts them in the best position to achieve their growth targets. That’s why it’s really important to spend meaningful time with your top account executives upfront to be sure you have a pulse on the ways in which they are translating the strategy you’ve set into actual work in the field. If I believe based on the data that it will take five customer on-sites per qtr to drive expansion then I want to be sure my top performers also see that as the benchmark, are consistently driving towards that mark and that they have scalable methods for doing that. Not only does this increase the confidence I can have in the target I set but I can also now enable and inspire the rest of the team to do the same because I’m using a top performer to drive belief and show them how it’s done. Absent this important context, you run the risk of setting unattainable targets, or worse, targets AEs drive towards only because they’re being asked to, not because it actually drives the behavior and results you know lead to the ultimate growth targets every sales leader is out to achieve.

While tech may have downsized lately, great sales professionals still have lots of options. The major driver of recent layoffs were to create more efficiencies in businesses; which leads to lower burn and more profitability. There are few roles as efficient and impactful on profitability as a top seller exceeding their quota. By nature these folks will always be sought after and have options - so retaining top talent should always be a priority. The biggest mistake I see in retaining talent, is front-line managers DAM'ing their team. They only manage: D- Deals - when the deals are there and closing life is good! When they're not, the only lever they have is to drive activity. A - Activity - when deals are there, activity check-in's are infrequent and leading indicators of poor future pipe are missed. Once the pipe dries up, poor managers micro-manage activity and ramp up the urgency on activity without offering much actual guidance on how to drive better conversions. "Do more" is the mantra. M - Morale - any decent manager is going to check-in with their team. If they aren't truly helping their AE be successful then morale will probably be good when they're winning, and lower when they're not. Especially low when they're being micro-managed for prospecting... Now let's compare this and understand why a top performer would stay in the first place. There are 4 core reasons and an elusive and fleeting 5th reason. 1. They feel successful, are making money, and feel they're being fairly rewarded for their work. 2. They're developing skills and growing. They know that the hard work they put in today will pay dividends down the road. 3. They see opportunities for career progression and advancement. They believe there is opportunity to get promoted, or take on meaningful work that would represent professional growth, in an acceptable timeframe. 4. They're having fun and/or enjoy the people they work with & for. If you hit all 4 of these and/or if you are a part of a very mission-driven organization with inspirational leadership, you can tap into the 5th category: 5. They feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves. This last one is a by-product of doing a lot of other things right. But if you can reach that pinnacle - this issue will take care of itself. Now if we apply the DAM method to why people would stay: 1. If the deals are there, the DAM Manager would theoretically focus on and help the AE close their deals. When pipeline is present the DAM method can work. Of course if it's not - this is strike 1. 2. Outside of situational deal coaching, there's no skills development carved out in the DAM method 3. Promotions are a by-product of hitting your number or not 4. It's fun when you're winning and unless you're on a great team, you don't really enjoy where you work when you're in a slump. A normal person needs 3-4 to feel good about where they work, 2 to be okay with it, and 1 to begrudgingly stick around. Literally everything above is dependent on there being enough pipeline and the AE closing deals. There is absolutely no reason for someone to push through to the other side when things get difficult. This is what causes someone to hit the bare minimum of requirements and demand a raise or promotion. They aren't having fun (4), they're not developing skills (2), they aren't making the money they want to make (1), so the only way to justify their existence is to get promoted (3) - which will give them fleeting relief until they move on 6 months later after the other 3 don't change and the next promo is 2 years down the road. So what DO you do: 1. Everything is easier when you're winning. I'm not going to break this down too deep - but more people feeling successful, hitting quota, making money, setting records, the more they'll want to stick around and keep doing it. Also check quotas to ensure they're realistic, attainable and surpassable. Make sure comp is competitive and I'm a big fan of accelerators to ensure your most talented AE's put the hammer down after they've hit quota instead of backing off. You can also get creative and make the highs higher. President's Club produces so many memories and is a silent motivator throughout the year. Hi-Po dinners or events for top performers throughout the year are another worthy investment. Once you've had a taste of being in the exclusive club for top performers you never want to back. 2. Working on Skills Development is where I think most companies can improve their standing with talent. Learning slowed down when we went remote. You used to have to be less intentional, and the osmosis of hearing everyone do the job, or being able to ask your neighbor a question, improved skills naturally. This has dropped off a cliff. According to the Bridge Group, ramp time now sits at 5.7 months compared to 4.3 months in 2020. This is an industry wide problem. While you can (and should) analyze your onboarding program, possibly hire outside training for a shot of adrenaline, and look at your enablement team for help here - it's not all on enablement. The gap is more on day to day coaching. Leaning in and investing in your front line leaders to be better coaches and develop THEIR skills to uplevel the AE's skills is where you'll have the biggest impact in my opinion. The bar for this also gets higher as the AE gets more talented, so it's important that front line leaders can not just coach the basics, but can help talent get to the next level. "Coaching" or "skills development" in general however just doesn't take up much real estate on enough managers' calendars. 3. Upward mobility is another silent motivator that drives people to keep working hard in the background. If your most talented people have reached the highest rung - you should identify this as a risk and think through if there are opportunities to create a new promotion level, carve out more responsibility, or add a rung to the ladder in some way. I've interviewed so many AE's who were talking to me because they felt "they had learned everything they can at their current company." Don't ever let that be the case, or don't be surprised when they leave. One thing I undervalued coming up as a leader was clarity of promotion path. I thought it was obvious that if you performed at an elite level, you would be in the conversation for a promotion. Some people can put their head down and operate at their best under these guidelines, but you miss your core performers. Core performers hate this answer, and by getting more clarity around the exact expectations for a promotion, you can often get more out of these folks as they work towards checking off all the boxes. I have also tried to talk talented people off a ledge who felt like it just wasn't clear how they get to the next level. We need to know that taking a new job, with a new title, at a new salary, is always crystal clear. So if someone is in their office at home, thinking through their next couple of years - if they can't see how they would move up in your organization, it's going to be a lot easaier to believe their easiest path is to go somewhere else. Change this, and prove it. It's so important to show promotions and ensure everyone knows those stories - what they did, how they did it, and how "you too can get those same results." 4. In a remote world "fun" is a lot harder to come by. I used to love coming to the office. My teams typically loved it too. We had a great group of people that genuinely enjoyed working together for the most part. Energy was through the roof. We had tunes going, people on the phone, we celebrated everything, gongs were ringing, jokes were made on the floor, deals were broken out live, people were learning, succeeding and had camaraderie around them to push through it if they weren't. We'd go out together from time to time and we made work fun. That is just near impossible to replicate in a remote world (if you have the secret sauce DM me!). What you can focus on however is building culture. Putting together an intentional team that wants to lean in, engage, and work together in this new capacity. Create opportunities to collaborate, learn and grow together. Anoint members of your team who have a pulse on the rest of the team to step up and help drive this so it lands. They can fill your blindspots. Invest in getting people in office whenever you can. If someone really likes their boss, this can make a huge difference too. Ensure your front line leaders are a big plus in this column. Which leads us to number 5 5. While a lot of things need to click for the team to feel like they're a "part of something bigger than themselves" there's one quality that will keep people around well beyond the point of logic, and help create a dedicated army for the cause. Inspirational leadership. You can find this at all levels - however you've heard about an inspirational leader behind many of the world's most iconic runs. Tesla had Elon Musk. Apple had Steve Jobs. Yammer had David Sachs. Hubspot had Brian Halligan. OpenAI was about to lose the whole company when they tried to oust Sam Altman. People will follow inspirational leadership through hell and come out the otherside unscathed and still committed. It doesn't need to be a silicon valley legend however. There are inspirational managers, directors, VP's and team leads across the industry. I feel this is undervalued however. If talent is really thinking about leaving - are they inspired? Are you inspiring them? If this feels like a gap - start with clarity of the Mission. What hill are we taking, what's our goal - beyond just hitting revenue targets. What's the strategy for hitting that goal? Why does that matter for the team? What's in it for them? Why are they lucky, one of the chosen few, to be on that mission here and now? If you can answer all of those things - people are probably inspired. If not - it mght be a good exercise. I map all of this out in detail to provide the ability to audit your own org, or an individual. You would love to answer yes to all 5, but identifying where the no's are can give you a clear roadmap on what to fix to systematically retain talent. 1. Do they feel successful, are making money, and feel they're being fairly rewarded for their work? 2. Are they developing skills and growing? Do they know that the hard work they put in today will pay dividends down the road? 3. Do they see opportunities for career progression and advancement? Do they believe there is opportunity to get promoted, or take on meaningful work that would represent professional growth, in an acceptable timeframe? 4. Are they having fun and/or enjoy the people they work with & for? 5. Do they feel they're a part of something greater than themselves?

To establish credibility and trust, you need to demonstrate your ability and reliability in your actions - consistently. Communicate openly and honestly and show empathy and consideration for other's perspectives while demonstrating your own knowledge and skills. People will trust you if your actions follow your words and you're honest in your communication.

Consistently reviewing and analyzing KPIs can be crucial in helping your sales team adapt to change. For example, if you are moving in to a new market the KPIs will not look the same as the sales KPIs from an established market. Momentum will develop over time. Adding rigor around the need for ongoing KPI analysis is an effective way to help your reps pivot and adapt on a regular basis and will help your reps become more successful in changing markets. In return this will mean they become more realistic when it comes to forecasting the potential of an opportunity, as they will better understand when an opportunity will close based on the appetite of the market at that time.

I think context, speed, and quality of sales conversation will be essential. Prospects have less patience than ever, they expect you to know them, their industry, and have deep knowledge of everything in your business that might solve their problems. People expect lightning fast response rates - if I have to wait on hold for 5 minutes I'm hanging up the phone. Sales reps who have a unique perspective that educates and helps the prospect, who respond incredibly fast, and prove that they can listen + are equipped with the systems and information to "stack the deck" so they start with as much context about the prospect as possible will win.

Great question — I would recommend a few principles here for setting KPIs into new markets: * Start small: understand what the 2-3 wins will be over the first few months into this new effort. Let’s set KPIs in accordance with those wins, and communicate them clearly to the team, and to the executives supporting that new endeavor. * Report on them early and often: stay close to the KPIs in a new market endeavor—it’ll help identify trends to early wins and opportunities for adjusting KPIs. * Retain the right to get smarter: You need buy in from the team that we’re starting with these KPIs, but we will get smarter and will edit those as we go along. If you have an enterprising team, they’ll want to provide feedback and you’ll want to hear it from them, and adjust course.

KPIs are best socialized in the largest setting, where they are relevant for all stakeholders. This establishes transparency and consistency for those who it applies to. For smaller companies this might be a Sales All Hands, while larger organizations might be done in a Team Meeting. Of course, you'll want to allow for questions and clarity to be proven. This can be done in either a group setting, but I also suggest you give space in a 1:1 for nuanced questions to be addressed. Every seller should be crystal clear on what their goals are and how they are being measured. Once your measurement period is up, whether that be monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually, it is important to reflect with your seller on their specific performance and how it compared to expectations. Speak about what they did to exceed expectations (have them share best practices with their colleagues) as well as what got in their ways from achieving expectations (coaching opportunity on removing obstacles). KPIs should not be a secret and how sellers are performing against them should be very transparent. Do your sellers a favor and don't sugar coat the performance. Clear is Kind.

KPIs which are not tied to objectives, initiatives or strategic goals are irrelevant. E.g. why should someone focus on ratio between emails sent to meetings booked if meetings will only be scheduled via phone. Why looking at seasonality or amount of revenue booked in the final 2 days if the pattern stays the same month over month or quarter over quarter?